The
Laundromat (2009)
Timothy
Melville
Vimeo
A man finds himself with a gun amongst his dirty
laundry. With only two other people around the suspect is obvious, and unable
to take her seriously he ends up handing over his wallet at gunpoint. I chose
this film because I found it amusing, and liked how the slight twist at the end
allows you to keep guessing what is going to happen the whole way through.
Representation
·
social groups – young females & young
males – interesting issue of their relationship, they don’t know each other but
both seem to fight for a power balance with her eventually getting the upper
hand over him
·
genre/styles – comedy/drama
Representations of masculinity/femininity:
·
Female character (1)
o Modern
representation of women, as she has power over the male character making her
more dominant.
o Negative
representation as she ends up stealing his money through being manipulative.
o
She
is not a stereotypical character as she isn’t particularly feminine in the way
she acts or dresses and women are usually the less dominant characters, whereas
she clearly has more power over him than he does over her.
·
Leading male character (2)
o
We
aren’t shown a huge amount of detail when it comes to his character – easy to
relate to as his costume and body language suggest he is quite laid back
o Brings
the comedic element to the film as he is gullible and dances for her
o Positive
representation – friendly towards her and apologetic to both characters at the
start about needing change
·
I do not think that the expected audience
for this film has shaped the representation in any way as I think the
characters have been represented this way as the choice of Melville who both
wrote and directed the film.
·
Deals with the issue of stealing though in a
slightly comedic manner, as well as gender stereotyping.
Narrative
·
Most of the story appears to be included in
the plot. We do not see what happens to either character afterwards, but assume
that they do not meet again. This allows us to have pretty much the same
viewpoint as the characters do which means as an audience we can relate to both
of them better.
·
Narrative is linear without closure which
leaves a cliff-hanger for the audience as we are left to assume what happens to
the characters in the end.
·
Restricted narrative occurs when he gets
change for a twenty from the other man in the launderette. We do not see the
woman put the gun in his basket, but we assume she has done so.
·
Todorov’s narrative theory can mostly be
applied to this short film, as all but one of the stages are apparent. The
disruption of equilibrium occurs when he finds the gun amongst his laundry, and
the confrontation stage is where the couple start talking about it and he gives
it to her. The resolution stage is not as clear cut as the others, as there is
not really a resolution to their conflict. The new equilibrium is established
when the female character leaves and he is left to realise what has just
happened to him.
·
Roland
Barthes theory of enigma codes can also be applied to this film, as the
audience is given a mystery in the text – the gun – which the audience is
motivated to answer throughout because of their engagement with the narrative. Action
codes are less important, though the close up shots of the machines at the
start asking for dollars only allows the audience to guess that there will be
an element to the narrative which surrounds this. (3)
·
The beginning and ends of the film are not
all that different. We assume that the characters go their separate ways and do
not meet again, which is the same as they were in the beginning. The only thing
that really changes is the disruption to normality which occurs in the film
with the introduction to the gun.
Genre
· Comedy is evident in this film, with
elements of action and crime, which makes this seem like a hybrid genre film. This
is not uncommon in short film as they often feature conventions from many
different genres.
·
Steve Neal’s theory of “difference in
repetition” works well here as this film is certainly different from other
comedies I have seen, and combined with action and crime conventions it allows
a difference to be evident.
·
Rick Altman’s theories can also be applied here as there are semantic
conventions of action and crime which communicate meaning to the audience –
namely the gun. I feel the gun is the main prop which makes the film more
sinister than simply a comedy. We sense the danger in it as an audience, which
is partly due to the characterisation of the female character as we do not
completely trust her.
·
These codes and conventions that we are introduced to throughout the
film allow us as an audience to get a better sense of what might happen. This
is particularly important in short film as there is much less time to create a
narrative which is immediately going to capture the attention of the audience.
Audience
·
Based on many of the comments on the Vimeo
page for this film, I think the target audience is mainly males around the ages
of 20-25 with an interest in cinematography and film.
·
I think this audience would enjoy this film
because the genre is more commonly associated with males fitting this
demographic anyway, but also the effective use of camerawork would please those
more interested in the making of the film than the content.
·
As far as I can tell, this film has only
ever been screened at film festivals such as the Official Selection Bodega Bay
Film Festival and Official Selection Southern Screen Film Festival in 2011,
which are credited on Vimeo alongside the awards the film has won, such as Best
Film Bohemian Shorts and Best Film Bayside Film Festival, both in 2010.
·
The film was directed by Timothy Melville
who is a filmmaker from Melbourne, and was produced by Scarab Studio Films,
which as appears to be an Australian production company.
Media Language
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